OCC#12:
2012/10/06: The clerk at the army surplus store said, “Whatchyu got there, a .45?” I just, “yes,” and he said that he’d like to see more people packing. I told him I carry openly partly to encourage others to do just that.
Stay Dangerous, My Friends
Okay, I think I have everything working in terms of content. Links to old posts seem to redirect to new site correctly, top level site name redirects correctly, and I’ve updated my RSS feed url on the old blogger site so that no one (all 8 of you!) will have to update their readers.
Now to tweak away to make it look more to my liking. But functionally, I think everything looks good.
Stay Dangerous, My Friends
Sorry for the lack of posting, but I’m in the middle of migrating to WordPress, joining the mass exodus from “Do No Evil” Google to escape the evil that they do. Or at least may do given the political activism of at least one of its founders.
I’ll have some posts on GRPC and a new Open Carry Chronicles post up after the transition.
Stay Dangerous, My Friends.
Read here. Yes, Chief Billy Weeks. Yes, yes, officers Shedran and Day were at a fault. The moment they put on those uniforms and picked up those guns and descended on the Adams’ home to perform a “Drug Raid.”
Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door.
Hold on a second here, you lying POS. In one breath, it’s the fault of a drug informant for giving faulty information. In the next, if the reporter is getting it right, you intended to raid the home next door. So which is it? Did you raid the house the informant told you about, which turned out to be incorrect? Or did he give you the correct information, but you got the wrong house? And what’s this with trusting informants without question and without verification? This is how swatting happens and it is entirely the fault of the SWAT team itself if an innocent person gets killed in those situations (but, yes, the person who falsely reported the crime should be prosecuted as well).
Ironwill III is exactly right. I don’t care if he used a bazooka. It was justified. The thugs with guns and badges were the aggressors.
Until the militarization of police departments is reversed and they start actually following the Peelian Principles, they are setting themselves up as enemies of the people.
Put down the select fire rifles, park the Bearcats, and stop treating this as a war zone. Collateral damage due to your mistakes is NOT acceptable. Go read one former cop’s take on that.
I’d rather take my chances with violent drug dealers, gang bangers, and common criminals whom I’ll be exonerated for killing in self defense (and may have a better chance of succeeding due to their lack of SWAT training), rather than killers of the wrong people due to mistakes with state sanction, to boot.
Stay Dangerous, My Friends
Update:Kudos to the widow: “”They need to get rid of those men, boys with toys,” said Adams’ 70-year-old widow, Loraine.”
h/t: Resister in the Rockies via WRSA
OCC#11:
2012/09/18: Both Knitebane and I were carrying openly at Golden Corral in Garner and as soon as we paid and started heading to the dining room area, we were addressed by an employee who said (light-heartedly) that there were cameras that would be keeping an eye on us. He wished us a good visit and went on his away.
Note that this is an exemplary way for an employee of an establishment to address someone carrying a gun if addressed about the gun at all. We were approached and addressed in a friendly manner. He was essentially checking us out. Though, once again, criminals don’t typically carry their guns openly in $50 – 100 holsters, but rather in their hands, hoodies or clumsily stuffed in their waistbands, most certainly if you address a criminal about his gun (even indirectly as was done in this case), they are not going to be all that comfortable about it. Might even shoot you. It’s possible he was putting us on notice, but by merely addressing us openly he set his own mind at ease that we weren’t there to cause trouble. He wasn’t rude and he didn’t kick us out. Good on him.
Later that night, we were discussing OC holsters and my slight frustration in not finding that one, silver bullet holster for carrying both openly and concealed. An excellent point that PDB made in the beginning of his OC holster review is this:
…keep in mind that a mechanical lock is no substitute for remaining aware of your surroundings and being mentally and physically prepared to fight for your gun. A locking holster will not on its own defeat a gun takeaway attempt, but rather buy you some time to defeat the person trying to take your gun away.
Like many, I used to carry my gun in a Serpa holster. I no longer use the Serpa, but not due to the sometimes scathing criticism it gets for increasing the risk of an ND. I think it is a training issue that is far overblown, as even Mr. Grebner here acknowledges (language warning):
As he explains in the original video here:
This was due largely to the fact that he had just gotten through training with the 5.11 Thumbdrive holster with his Glock. If the Serpa is all you use and train with, then the risk reduces to the noise level, in my opinion. However, it’s certainly not for everyone. Particularly if you, for example, are reviewing several holsters to write about them as PDB is right now.
All that said, Brigid’s lockup experience a few years back as well as lots of other documented cases have convinced me not to use the holster for carrying any longer. In fact, even if I thought the risk of shooting myself while using the holster was greater, these occurrences of lockup, to me are an even greater risk. As I said in Stay Dangerous, a better way to see off a soldier than “Be Careful” is “Good Hunting.” That’s not to say that we throw safety out the window, and, sure, I know we are not at war. Yet. But it is just an acknowledgement that life is dangerous. Liberty is fraught with risks. It’s all about tradeoffs. I don’t mind a relatively insignificant (in my opinion) and relatively easy to mitigate risk of an ND. But I do mind a well documented risk of my defensive weapon being completely disabled with no way to mitigate it, as was demonstrated in Brigid’s case (i.e.: there was no conclusion as to what actually caused the lockup).
On the OC holster issue, I’ll be reading PDB’s review series, but the bottom line for me is that when you take these three things into account:
I’m beginning to believe that active retention is not an absolute necessity for carrying openly. I’ll remain open to persuasion, but for now, I just may be switching back to my Blackhawk CQC holster for carrying openly.
In the practical sense, if you conceal with an OWB, then your concealment garment will slow down your draw. With IWB, it can be even more of an impediment because it’s often a tighter gripping holster so the simple act of pulling it out of the holster is slower. Carrying openly in an active retention holster means you have to release the retention before drawing, also slowing down your draw. So it’s hard to argue that any option is less of an impediment to a fast draw than carrying openly with only passive retention, with heightened situational awareness and preparedness.
Besides, I don’t just carry openly for practical defensive reasons. I also carry for political activism reasons. And I really don’t care what Pincus or Yeager think of that. I go by the positive results I’ve had in that area, not by the opinion of some tacticool instructors with big egos or a penchant for putting cameramen literally in the line of fire unnecessarily and then doubling down on stupid and defending it. I am not your ambassador and will not be until you send me a fat honkin’ check every month for my services.
Others are welcome to comment.
Stay Dangerous, My Friends
I found this on a serendipity search:
It’s over a year old, but oh so relevant with what’s going on in the Middle East. Yup, and guess what. This is the problem with being opposed to “violence” without any qualifiers. There is immoral violence and there is moral violence. Violence in defense of the non-aggressor is moral. Violence by an aggressor is immoral.
We should endeavor to be the most existential threat on Earth to every criminal, thug, tyrant, whether official or freelance like those who follow a certain death cult ideology.
It’s what I mean, when I sign my messages:
Stay Dangerous, My Friends
I just did a little math on the Kickstarter contributions to the Assaulted project mentioned in my previous post and though the trend is headed in the right direction, we need to pick up the pace.
From September 5 – September 15 (yesterday), the total contributions were about $11,600 or about 1,160 per day. Between yesterday and today, the contribution total went from 11,600 to 13,000, or a about a 1,400 jump in one day. Nice to see a jump, however, in order to meet the goal of 65,000, the average daily contribution needs to about double to 2,800 per day.
Please, if you, like me, think this is a worthy project contribute what you can and, more importantly, spread this wide and far.
h/t: David
Stay Dangerous, My Friends.
Keep asking for it, and we will treat you specially. Same as wild animals and criminals: a threat to our lives, with no consequences for you.
Why do we as employers of our legislators tolerate them giving special treatment of Law Enforcement Officers in that they continually tilt toward granting them more and more exemption from the Law? When they screw up, people die.
David puts out the call to support another Kickstarter supported project on the attack on gun rights originating in California and threatening to spread through the rest of the country.
A previous project to make a film documenting the Fast and Furious fiasco had a rather high dollar goal, higher than any I’ve seen on Kickstarter and never met the goal. Still, it was a shame to see how few supported the project.
Here’s our chance, again. This time, if the goal isn’t achieved, then I don’t have much hope for the future of freedom in this country. Please, lend what support you can.
And spread the word, too.
Near the start of my day, this 11th anniversary of the attacks by amoeba-brained faithful followers of Islam on this nation’s sovereign soil at the NYC World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and another unknown target that was heroically stopped by passengers of United Flight 93, I caught a Facebook post with a link to this drivel from our illustrious governor, Dumplin’ herself.
My response on Facebook, was this:
This is NOT a fricken day of service. So stick it, Bevvie. This [is] a time for a memorial to the victims of this attack by Islamic jihadists on this sovereign land. A time for prayer and contemplation. — And tomorrow is a time for reloading.
I’ll add that we also honor those who have given their lives serving the country in the military.
Much of what I said last year at this time applies this year, too. So, I’m going to post an updated version of it here as a reminder: I WILL NOT SUBMIT.
[Updated version of last year’s post begins here.]
Today, even if I just have to fry up a single slice of bacon, I will commemorate this day by eating pork. Unfortunately, I won’t get to go shooting today, as I am attending a CPR class tonight. But I will be haughtily Waving delicious pork and other meats in the face of America’s enemies, nonetheless.
In honor of those who died on that day, with the noted exception of the 19 backward scum who hijacked the planes, I do celebrate the freedoms we have — while we still have them, at least — and a emphatically assert that we will not be defeated. We will not be intimidated. And the sensitivities of those who share the ideology of those who committed those atrocities ten years ago today are not something with which we will ever concern ourselves. I will eat pork, as well, to celebrate that right while we still fend off any all attempts to impose sharia law anywhere in this country.
The title of last years post, “I Will Not Be Intimidated” comes from a thought I had four years ago after returning from a mission trip to Venezuela. On that trip, we had a four hour bus ride from the airport in Maracaibo to a chalet in the mountains in La Puerta.
We wound up running into an unexpected checkpoint, and while the leader of our group was outside the bus explaining what our purpose was, one of Hugo’s thugs got on board and stood at the head of the bus. He, very, very, slowly, scanned ever single passenger on the bus with his eyes and had a smile on his face that, although almost imperceptible, seemed to me to be rather gleeful. I believe he was gleeful that he is in a position of power to intimidate every civilian he encounters. I remember thinking to myself, “give me a break, you two-bit thug.” I don’t remember whether or not this Hugobot was even armed. It’s likely that he was, given the thugocracy we were in.
A short time after we arrived back in the states, I told this story, (including my thoughts during the experience), to a liberty-loving relative of mine and he rather seriously said, “Yeah, but if anybody was suspicious looking or defiant in any way, he would have just killed him.”
I’ve considered that caution since he said it, and the conclusion I’ve come to is, “So? I will not be intimidated.” In Hugoland, I’m sure I would have been killed had I acted too snotty or maybe made the shape of a gun with my finger and pointed it at him. And every situation requires its own analysis regarding when to resist, talk back, or comply. It was simply wise, and rather non-intrusive to comply in that situation and location. I’m am not interested in fighting that battle for Venezuelans. My battle is here.
Last year at this time in the restaurant we went to, I apparently got a serious scowl from some woman customer in the corner. Every new (to me) place I carry is yet another risk that I’m going to run into unfriendly staff or some panty-waist customer will call the police with a man with a gun report, to which our Sheriff’s office will likely and ridiculously respond — and without asking a single question, such as “Is it in his holster? Is he waving it around pointing it at people?” — regardless of the legality of the act.
But I will not be intimidated! And I will continue to carry openly wherever I can, no matter how many scowls I get. Bite me. And trust me, there just aren’t that many scowls.
[For people who are supposedly on our side, but think “bite me” shows I’m too immature to be carrying around openly supposedly being an ambassador for all gun owners, well, bite me. I’ll be your ambassador when you started sending me a big honkin’ check every month. You see, I’m not going to say “bite me” to someone who asks me leave his restaurant. Although I might plagiarize Bubba’s letter to Bonefish, modified appropriately, and send it to them. And I’m not going to say bite me to the lady in the corner who scowls at me. Or to the cop who has to attend to the call — though maybe reluctantly here in Johnston County — reporting a man with a gun. But I do say that if you are supposedly pro-gun, yet you resort to arguments against open carry that are perfectly equivalent to the arguments used by the anti-gunners against carrying (or even owning) guns, then, please, stop helping.]
So that is my logic behind eating pork and regularly carrying guns, openly when possible, on the anniversary of the murderous attacks on September 11, 2001. The pork is intended to offend the sensibilities of those who would force us to convert, be subjugated, or be killed.
And the guns are to say, I WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED.
This is America!
And we will fight you until either there is not a single one of us left, or your unholy book is tossed on a dung heap and there isn’t single soul left who will be willing to carry out its exhortations.
Or, you can keep your book, believe what it says all you want…and back off.
Your choice.
Your move.
Michelle Malkin had a post a year ago today that linked to a 9/11 fifth anniversary post of hers from 2006. So here is my pledge. Lan astaslem. I will not submit.
Via RTC, we will never forget these bottom dwellers. May they be stranded in a field surrounded by hog farms.
Update: Something I meant to include.
I just saw 2016: Obama’s America this past Saturday night. Coincidentally, William Jacobson did as well. And I must say, I agree with William’s assessment regarding the slightly bizarre “anti-colonialism” theory.
Dinesh D’Souza is an odd character. He seems to be a dedicated conservative, but when it comes to theory, usually gets it wrong. Badly. I’m glad that this film came out, now, a couple months before the election for conservatives to drag their undecided friends to. And I don’t think the anti-colonialism theory actually hurts the actual data he presented. His interview with George Obama was quite weird, though. Dinesh seemed to imply that he (Dinesh) believed that Barrack should be helping George out, and yet George seemed to display the actual conservative view that he (George) is an adult and isn’t even asking for Barrack’s help.
D’Souza is no stranger to ill conceived theories. I haven’t read his The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, but Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch.org, did an excellent smackdown of it when it came out. D’Souza, is apparently, far too accommodating. Even in the case of 2016, you almost get a sense that he wants to emphasize, as he says in the very beginning, that it is the influences of his past that he has carried forward to his present.
We are only tied to our past if we choose to be. Obama is responsible for his views as an adult and not a victim of his upbringing. I often joke that as I read more about the real history of our founding, I am undoing the damage done to me by the public school system. At a certain point in our adult lives we must take responsibility for the views we hold and for the results of those beliefs as we act on them.
And for that, I condemn the 19 Muslims who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and hope that the 72 virgins they are given are men. And the same goes for those who hold the same beliefs and act on them nearly every day across the world.